I truly am trying to understand the concept of negligence and what it consists of in situations such as these.
But the vibe you have picked up is correct, also. I’m not a fan of the seller/barn owner. Too many people I know have had bad experiences with them in various ways. Myself and my dd included.
In the end, I just hope the little girl is okay (she seems to be healing fine) and that all parties learn from the experience.
They took the horse for a TRIal ride, not a TRAil ride. The horse was ridden in a ring, not out on the trails.
Totally fair. Thank you for pointing that out, though the ring was outside in a storm so I’m still going to make the same point that this entire situation could have been avoided if there was a responsible trainer/adult in charge.
Elements of a Negligence Claim
Duty - The defendant owed a legal duty to the plaintiff under the circumstances;
Breach - The defendant breached that legal duty by acting or failing to act in a certain way;
Causation - It was the defendant’s actions (or inaction) that actually caused the plaintiff’s injury
understand the rider was a minor therefor could not be a party of any of the contract dealings so whoever is their guardian or parent of oversight should have intervened in the child’s behalf.
but it appears the total emphases of this thread to hang the horse’s seller
All of this makes the seller even more stupid, because if I’m Shady Horsetrader, LLC, and I’m trying to foist a probably unsuitable 5-year-old on a perhaps ignorant family who are first time horse owners/keepers (after selling them a horse that was already not working out), I would do all that I can to make sure the kid tries the new horse on a beautiful day without a whisper of a breeze. Hell, I’d launder a pink saddle pad from my collection to seal the deal.
On one hand, yes, this seller sounds terrible and should have said “no.” But the parents, after this seller already sold them an unsuitable horse, used poor judgement.
But the seller didn’t hide any information from the family, and everyone knew about the storm, and chose to ignore it, even though (as others have said) even a saintly packer can spook at weather.
Like other posters have said, most states recognize horses as being inherently dangerous so there’s usually a high bar.
This site lists a number of horse-related cases. If you’ll look through the injury cases, you’ll probably learn a lot about what is and is not generally considered to be negligence: https://www.animallaw.info/cases/topic/equine-liability
There used to be an even more comprehensive site but I think the administrator of that site passed away. But I’ll keep looking.
Wow, some of the stories are kind of interesting. One of the cases (this is NY law, btw) seems to have a few features of similarity to the described situation.
https://www.animallaw.info/case/applbaum-v-golden-acres-farm-and-ranch
Some of the claims (that ten should be the minimum age for riding lessons!) are kind of ridiculous on the family’s part. But the fact the barn was using a three-year-old horse for TRAIL (not trial) rides in the open, for minors with almost no riding experience still didn’t negate the fact that horseback riding is inherently risky and the fact they signed a release).
If this barn has this much of a reputation for being unsafe then that still, to me, goes back to the people in charge of this kid who turned around and let them bring a horse to try during a storm.
I wonder if this horse is typically so bomb proof (because there are some young ones that are) that they thought this might be a good selling point, that Dobbin gave the kid a good ride even in this nasty weather.
I do not disagree with you on this point. One of the unreasonable adults here was the parents of the child.
NY does not have a real limited liability law, and what they have that they are now calling their limited liability law is very new. Just a FYI since you are tossing out a case from 2004 from NY as an example, it might not hold water anywhere with a limited liability law.
As far as a 5 year old and an 8 year old, I’ve seen some 8 year olds who could ride a goat sideways over 8 fences and get a ribbon doing it.
So it just depends on the 8 year old.
But this is all why they make trainers, and especially parents, to make these kinds of decisions for children and keep them safe.
Negligent? Prob not. Stupid? Add in the weather conditions and yes. I wouldnt ride my 19 year old in weather like that.
But im sure one side or the other could find some ambulance chaser to make it a big deal.
Actually, it looks like in that case the farm’s attempt to have the case decided in their favor failed.
The court said that the liability release was invalid so the case could proceed to trial. I wasn’t able to find any information about whether or not it actually went to trial but if insurance was involved, it’s a good chance that one settled out of court.
But it brings up a good point- in some states, liability hinges on good liability releases. I wonder if there is a signed release in the OPs scenario? Probably, but that might be a factor if there isn’t.
Ah, I’m not a lawyer, so I had trouble deciphering everything that was said!
I agree, if this is an actual question about legal liability (versus moral liability), it would depend on the laws of the state and if any release was signed. It was the parents’ property but a seller’s horse, so that might complicate matters, since the private farm might not have had a release, and the seller might not have had the parents sign one if it wasn’t on their own, personal farm.
I did notice that may of the cases involved bites rather than riding injuries (of people who were passing by stalls and such), which again, might be with people who were just visiting and hadn’t signed a release.
It doesn’t sound like negligence.
It does sound like there wasn’t a single working brain among any of the participants (except maybe the horse). “Green on green equals black and blue” has been around for years for good reasons. “You can’t fix stupid” is another popular saying for good reasons.
There is a video out there on social media that makes me laugh every time I see it.
Is this horse safe for my kid?
Well, that depends. You got one of them mean little kids like you see riding around at rodeos all day, running all over the place on half wild horses? Then yeah, this horse is safe for your kid. You got one of them sweet little kids? Then no, this horse probably isn’t safe for your kid.
If you are talking about negligence in the legal sense, then you need to consult an attorney, not us.
Most of us have answered you in the moral context and indicated that no, in our opinion, there was no negligence on the part of the seller. There was simply plenty of bad judgement on the part of everyone involved.
Obviously you didn’t want to hear that, but [shrug] that seems to be the consensus.
So responding to the OP I have questions…why would anyone be negligent in this scenario? Presumably the weather forecasts are made publicly available and everyone had an equal opportunity to be aware of threatening weather. Presumably nobody was forced to ride against their wishes. I can’t see any reason why each party shouldn’t be responsible for their own decisions.
THANK YOU everyone for your input and candid answers. Each one helped educate me about all sides of this situation. I have a better understanding of how liability, responsibility, etc work in this type of situation.
That is a different question to me. This depends so much on many scenarios. The ‘green’ horse, how green is green? Temperament of both horse and rider, will the rider be in regular lessons, do the parents know horses, etc
The question posed was the ride in the potential storm foolish, well, in hindsight yes, but only because there was a problem, but if the thunder hadn’t happened and the ride went fine there wouldn’t have been a problem. There is always a car backfiring, dirtbike going by, bag flapping in the wind, cat popping out of nowhere, stuff happens with horses.
It doesn’t sound like the seller was pressuring the ride to take place.
I also agree that there wasn’t negligence…ignorance perhaps.
Just because this family has a horse on their property doesn’t make them experts. There are probably a lot of things they should know, but that doesn’t mean they do. If they are going back to the horse-seller that sold them a horse that isn’t working out…it shouldn’t be a surprise that horse #2 may not work either. I get the line of thinking though if they can trade for something “better” suited for the daughter then they don’t have to sell the first horse and then buy a second.
Networking is such a big thing in the horse world. This family would have been better off to get daughter started in a lesson barn with a trainer and go from there when it’s time to buy. There are a lot of people that get in way over their heads quickly and don’t know any better because they don’t have anyone with knowledge and experience to help them. This sounds like an example of that going horribly wrong.
many states have held that parental waivers of a minor’s rights are unenforceable
General statement.
If you want to know who is legally negligent in an accident you have to go through a legal process called a civil suit. That will go over every step of the incident in painful detail and determine if one or the other parties was primarily at fault and should pay damages. We can’t possibly know until that happens. And the decision will be influenced by the specific laws in that jurisdiction.
On the other hand we all know horse folks that continually have Bad Things happen around them. People come off their horses and are seriously hurt, their horses get loose and cause havoc, their very presence on the trails or in the arena makes you prudently go somewhere else. We have several such at my barn right now. They have never caused anything that resulted in a civil suit but I still stay away from them when they are riding.
So if a given barn or rider is obviously generating Bad Things around them, trust your spidey sense and stay clear. Obviously there’s not much you csn do about people who don’t see the problem.
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